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Date-rape drugs are largely an urban myth used as an excuse by women who booze themselves into a stupor, it has been claimed.
They are willing to 'hide behind' the idea that a stranger poured poison in their drink - rather than face up to the fact that they had simply been binge drinking.
Interviews with more than 200 female students in and around London revealed they often mistakenly linked sickness, blackouts and dizziness to poisoning by a stranger, when excessive alcohol consumption is much more likely to be the cause.

Urban myth: Young women who fear they have been poisoned with a date rape drug have often just drunk too much alcohol, researchers say

Dr Adam Burgess, from the University of Kent school of social policy, said rumours about the prevalence of date-rape drugs were little more than an urban myth.

This led young women to underestimate real risks of alcohol misuse, which can include impaired judgment putting them at risk of sexual assault.
'The reason why fear of drink-spiking has become widespread seems to be a mix of it being more convenient to guard against than the effects of alcohol itself and the fact that such stories are exotic - like a more adult version of "stranger danger".'

The study, published in the British Journal of Criminology, found that three quarters of students identified drink-spiking as leading to an important risk of sexual assault - more than drinking too much alcohol.

Drink tampering was rated as a more significant factor in sexual-assault than drug taking, being drunk or walking at night in a high-crime area.
More than half of those in the survey said they knew someone who claimed to have had drugs slipped into their drink.

But despite such popular beliefs, police have found no evidence that rape victims are commonly drugged with substances such as rohypnol.

Dr Burgess said: 'There have hardly been any cases where it has been proved that sedatives such as rohypnol and GHB have been used in a rape incident. Yet it has been a storyline that has appeared in virtually every TV soap.

'Maybe that tells us something about the programmes these women are watching. But it is concerning that women are more concerned about something that is incredibly unlikely ever to happen to them.'

Doctors tested 75 women who claimed their drinks had been spiked by date rape drugs, not one tested positive

Women who claim to be victims of 'date-rape' drugs such as Rohypnol have in fact been rendered helpless by binge-drinking, says a study by doctors.
They found no evidence that any woman seeking help from emergency doctors because their drinks were allegedly spiked had actually been given these drugs.
Around one in five tested positive for recreational drugs while two-thirds had been drinking heavily.The findings further erode the theory that there is widespread use of Rohypnol and GHB, another drug said to be favoured by predatory rapists.
Last month a personal safety campaigner claimed that Rohypnol had never been used to assist a sexual assault in the UK. Doctors carrying out the latest study at the Wrexham Maelor Hospital said it was far more likely women were claiming their drinks had been spiked as an "excuse" for binge-drinking.
The 12-month study was based on 75 patients - mostly women - treated in casualty who told doctors their drinks had been tampered with in pubs or clubs.
But tests for drugs such as Rohypnol, GHB and ketamine found nothing, says the study published in the Emergency Medicine Journal.
It showed 65 per cent of women had 160mg of alcohol in their blood - twice the 80mg drink/drive limit - and a quarter were three times over the limit. Although all the patients denied taking drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine, one fifth tested positive.
Researcher Dr Hywel Hughes, an associate specialist in A&E said: "This study confirmed our suspicion that most of the patients with suspected drink-spiking would test negative for drugs. No ketamine, GHB or Rohypnol was found in the samples which suggest they are not commonly used to spike drinks."There has been a lot of media coverage in recent years, mainly focusing on just a few substances including Rohypnol and GHB, which has led to the perception that drinkspiking is a widespread practice. But most patients allegedly having a spiked drink tested negative for drugs misuse.
"Claiming their drink has been spiked may be used as an excuse by patients who have become incapacitated after the voluntary consumption of excess alcohol."
Dr Hughes said some women might have felt ashamed at ending up in casualty. "There seems to be greater awareness about the dangers of binge-drinking, which is where the emphasis should stay," he added.

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It strikes me as being both at the same time, sad, and yet at the same time, entirely realistic.

It's sad for those who do get assaulted in this kinda way.

And its entirely realistic that drunk regrettable sex is the final destination for most young people on a sporadic basis.

I really wish people would learn from their mistakes, and just y'know... not drink so much. SWIM used to discover his labido in the bottom of a bottle, and often went cruising for liquored up chicks with daddy issues, and although horrifically cynical, SWIM is always happy to discover that using ones charm is not yet considered rape, and is equally happy no-one has cried it at him. Nowerdays he doesn't drink so much. Goes home with his flatmates, no bother.

Channel 4 are currently running a fantastic documentary series 'The Force' in which cameras follow a major crime investigation. The second episode was about a woman who claimed she had been raped by 3 men in a hotel room, it turned out she hadn't, she was just too drunk to remember..............

Dr Burgess said: 'There have hardly been any cases where it has been proved that sedatives such as rohypnol and GHB have been used in a rape incident. Yet it has been a storyline that has appeared in virtually every TV soap.

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Saying there have "hardly been" any proven cases of date rape drugs being used, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. These types of articles would make anyone who is suspicious that they have been raped after being given a sedative drug, extremely reluctant to come forward.

Maybe the focus should be shifted to include alcohol as a potential date rape drug? After all, if a woman is wasted cos she been on an alcohol binge, does that make it ok to have sex with her without her consent? Just cos she's laying on her back, not protesting or saying "stop", doesn't imply she's agreeing to have sex.

Regardless of what a woman has taken, be it drugs or alcohol, with or without her knowledge, to take advantage of her sexually is still rape.

Maybe the focus should be shifted to include alcohol as a potential date rape drug? After all, if a woman is wasted cos she been on an alcohol binge, does that make it ok to have sex with her without her consent? Just cos she's laying on her back, not protesting or saying "stop", doesn't imply she's agreeing to have sex.

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No consent is rape, and they don't need to be saying stop. One could argue that in a paralytic state that someone was in no fit state to give consent, however if they do give consent at that point someone near to or equally as drunk is unlikely to go actually they are too drunk to give consent I'll not continue. Regretting, the next morning, having had sex while drunk is a long way from being raped though. Not remembering giving consent is also not not giving consent.

If the woman was drunk and the bloke sober (or sober enough to tell), even if she did give consent, I think this could be a case where the too drunk to be able to give consent were used but it would be almost impossible to prove that the bloke was sober at the time.

Detection/conviction rates are incredibly poor in the UK. I saw something on BBC Breakfast a while back where a woman was raped and basically the police, after the initial report, ignored it and she ended up having to get the CCTV footage and other stuff herself and still they did nothing because she happened to have had a few drinks that night.

I don't doubt that many drugs have been used to facilitate rape, but I can say with certainty that alcohol is #1. Cocktails like hurricanes and long island iced tea are, in SWIMs opinion, essentially date-rape cocktails, along with so-called 'foo-foo' shots (super sweet stuff). SWIM can think of no poison more insidious and common than sweetened liquor - for sheer scale it causes more ruin than all the rest combined. Consume it only if you know how to control yourself.
It's frustrating to see how binge-drinking remains so hugely popular - SWIM did his bout in his youth and thinks it's the stupidest tradition in our society, and tries to steer people away from it every chance he gets. So many people get in such terrible messes in their youth, it's sad.
A study of the anthropology of booze reveals our society's idiotic contradictions in their fullest glory. Truly a drug that embodies the cognitive dissonance of our culture.

i've noticed that women of this generation those that are 18-24, seem to have a lot less control over their alcohol consumption. i personally feel that this is due to the midnset they were brough up in over here in america, and that is the "anything you can do, i can do better" thing. young girls have been taught that they are absolutely equal to their male classmates from kindergarten (if not earlier) on. This is fine for somethings, infact women outscore men in most accademic fields these days.

i see women try to go shot for shot with men. this is a recipe for disaster, and i fully believe the statements made in these 2 articles

(warning, insenstiive comment alert: don't read past hear if you are easily offended) besides, who really wants to waste good drugs trying to 'date rape' someone when you can just take them yourself and masturbate?

I can second this notion - SWIM has known many girls with this macho drinking problem. He used to date a girl that was literally half his weight who would try to keep up - with disastrous results.
Women need to understand that they cannot digest alcohol as well as men - that's not sexist, it's a medical fact. And also take body mass into account.
But of course guys do the same thing. SWIM used to try to drink after the fashion of Hunter Thompson or Charles Bukowski...until he realized he didn't want to have a crippling addiction to booze. Just cause someone is a great writer doesn't mean they don't have problems.
Hard-drinking is so romanticized, but the reality of blue shakes and alcoholism will make you rethink it...as will, I imagine, being raped while under the influence, wrecking your car, etc.

I suppose the article has a purpose in making people aware that date-rape drugs aren't as common as people think. I can't really discern if it is implying that it is these womens' fault, but unfortunately I think that's what a lot of people will take from it.

It's hard to figure out where some of the lines are drawn. Obviously if the woman says "no" that's it, but of course when drunkeness comes into play it starts blurring the concept of willpower when she gives the go-ahead. Having sex with someone who is passed out is clearly rape, but what about someone who is very drunk and saying "yes?" I consider myself to have willpower and responsibility for my actions even when I'm drunk, as do most women I know, but not everyone feels that way. How can you tell what kind of person they are? If you get drunk and hit someone with your car you are considered to have responsibility; what changes with sex?

There's a lot of difficult questions with this issue. What's the difference between a man drugging a woman (which is obviously rape), and him buying her drinks with the intention of getting her wasted and having sex with her? Does intent even matter? Is there a difference between a sober man having sex with a drunk woman who's saying yes, and two drunk people saying yes to each other? Also, to one woman, blacking out and waking up with a guy is no big deal; to another, it could be a horrifying, psychologically damaging experience. How is a man supposed to tell? The default of course would be to just never have sex with a drunk person, but that is not really how it works in practicality. I'd be surprised if even .001% of people who had sex while extremely drunk considered themselves raped; is there a way to be objective about it, or is how the woman feels the determining factor?